KUALA LUMPUR: GrabTaxi Holdings Pte Ltd and SoftBank Internet and Media, Inc (Simi) yesterday announced a US$250 million (RM860.9 million) investment deal in MyTeksi, or GrabTaxi as it is known elsewhere, by SoftBank Corp making it the largest investor in the company.

Launched in 2012, MyTeksi currently serves 17 cities across six countries in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Softbank's investment in MyTeksi will further build its presence in Southeast Asia and maximise synergies with its network of Internet companies around the world.

MyTeksi founder and group CEO Anthony Tan said: " We are thankful that they believe in us and will leverage SoftBank's expertise and group synergies across their mobile and Internet platforms to further accelerate our growth. This new round of funding will help drive our mission of revolutionising and improving the way Southeast Asians commute more aggressively than ever before."

With the total investment in the last 14 months amounting to almost US$340 million.

MyTeksi group vice president of Marketing Cheryl Goh said: "Growth remains a key focus for MyTeksi and we now have a considerable war chest to accelerate our rapid expansion in Southeast Asia. Our strong focus in this region also means that each of six MyTeksi markets stands to receive a significant portion of funding compared to larger players that have to stretch their funding much further. Clearly we don't take our market leadership position for granted and this funding will ensure we can grow our leadership position as the industry evolves in the next few years."

In the past 12 months (November 2013 to November 2014), growth has been exponential with the number of taxi drivers in the network increasing by almost 300% to 60,000; mobile app usage has grown almost 500% to 500,000 users currently. Also downloads of the MyTeksi app has increased by almost 400% to 2.5 million.

MyTeksi estimates that there are three taxi bookings made through their app every second across the region, which is almost an 800% increase from a year ago.

By thesundaily.my

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